Deplorable, unsafe state of Beacon Hill brick sidewalks
Dear Editor,
This letter is addressed to everyone on Beacon Hill. I am an 82-year-old man in good health.
In the last two years, I have tripped on the bricks and I fallen down at these locations:
At Toscanos, the valet people picked me up having sustained bloody knees and shins.
At Gary Drug, with nosebleed, where a passerby ran into Gary to buy a box of tissue to help me staunch the flow of blood all over my shirt and suit. I came away with bruised knees and torn trousers.
At 48 Beacon St., which is impassable in wet weather. I came away with scratched lenses on my glasses, and black and blue on my shin.
I have observed:
A young business lady in a suit catch her low heel in the gaps between the bricks and fall in front of Charles Liquor 141 Charles St.
A tourist slip and fall at 48 Beacon St.
When I bring up the subject conversationally, I have been told:
By a nurse practitioner, in her 30s at MGH that she has fallen on Charles Street three times, once spraining her ankle and requiring medical treatment.
By my visiting nurse, in her 40s that on her visits she has fallen on Charles Street and also Myrtle Street.
By a prominent Beacon Hiller, “I fell on a loose brick at the Starbucks corner on Charles Street and broke two bones in my hand.”
By a neighbor, a Beacon Hill friend, fell on Charles Street some time ago and had a shoulder injury.
The mayor is interested in helping the handicapped.
I would say the non-maintenance of these sidewalks is creating handicapped people.
In the case of the aged, such a fall can often start their decline to death.
The bricklayers know how to set an even solid underlayment and how to set and lay bricks tightly together to avoid the deterioration that winter and freezing brings. There are many examples in Boston of such excellent safe brick sidewalks.
But not on Beacon Hill.
Yours for preventing injuries,
John Appleton
Brimmer Street